Wabash College - Wabash Yearbook (Crawfordsville, IN)

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Hall the vertical band of windows were replaced by separate windows framed in the style of Center Hall, which had been built in 1857. The general lines were preserved, howeverf' Professor Forbes wrote, and the results could have been a great deal worse. The next step in the development of South Hall proved that the building could be very much worse look- ing indeed. The South Hall of this third phase is the depressing object which occupies the site at the present time, a shocking reminder of Victorian aesthetic judgement at its lowest ebb. This second remodeling of South Hall was executed in 1880, the four stories were remade into two, the gables remade, and the Roman portico added on the east side. This is the South Hall inherited by our own gener- ation. Professor Forbes was the campus crusader five years ago for undoing the mistakes of the intervening generations and restoring South Hall to the original style. It was his crusade that gave South Hall a stay of execution when plans for the new library were begun, had he not interrupted, the library would probably have been built on the site of South Hall. Re- storation, according to one architect who ex- amined South, is possible, but it would no doubt cost more than a new building. And so, during the past spring, South Hall was demolished. There was no other course, but there can be no doubt that it was with regrets that the college found it necessary to destroy this bit of living history in order to continue progress toward the future. f i?,r'F-f

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The walls of South Hall began to go up 123 years ago, constructed of bricks fired on the campus. The founders had dedicated the col- lege near Sugar Creek northwest of Craw- fordsville, but in the spring of 1835 the trus- tees bought the present campus and decided to move the college from its original site. The College EdiHce, the Hrst building to be built on the new campus, was to be ready soon after school started in September of 1838. Less than two weeks after the semester opened, fire gutted the building during the night. The determination of the VVabash pioneers to re- build inside the gutted walls of the building marks one of the crucial points in the collegeis early history. This original building, which was to become known in the Twentieth Century and several metamorphoses later as South Hall, was quite different from the South Hall which was de- molished this spring. The original was de- scribed by John D. Forbes, professor of history and architectural historian, who left the fac- ulty in 1955: It was a four-story brick build- ing of New England provincial Georgian design with a central tower supporting a small Steeple. End walls and fire walls were raised above the roof line and iinished off in simple square step-gables, each containing two chim- neys. T'he windows were square and simple, South each spanning two stories and giving the building a vertical effectf, The South Hall of this period is pictured in the well known lith- ograph, made in 1850, a copy of which hangs in the library. At first the building housed practically the entire college, later it served only as a dormi- tory. In 1872 fabout the time the campus was cleared of underbrushj Colonel Beebe Car- rington, a Civil War teacher of military sci- ence and tactics who suHered under thc delusion of being an architectf, was commis- sioned by the Board of Trustees to remodel the dorm and convert it into a preparatory school. The tower and Steeple were removed, Page Eighteen

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Here is the very heart of the College. The WVabash tradition would have long been lost but for its enthusiastic retention by the administra- tion and faculty. It is with these men that Wabash Will move forward in the sixth quarter- century of her history. Mr. Harvey, Deans Hogge and Moore, and Dr. Bedrick take a mid-afternoon break in the Scarlet Inn.